Solace
by special-rock
Summary: Post-War. Hermione is confronted with certain circumstances. A brother in Azkaban, a father who wants them to be a family again, a guilt-ridden best friend and a sort-of boyfriend who she's not so sure she wants to be with.


**A/N: I do not own Harry Potter or associated material.**

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It was autumn in London.

The streets were covered with dried leaves and debris, which in any other town would have looked filthy and grungy but in London added a certain rustic charm to the city. Unfortunately, it was also raining, as it tended to do in England on a periodic basis, and this caused the leaves to turn to mush and gather in large piles on the footpaths. Interspersed among the piles of leaves were puddles of water gathering in badly-set concrete, some large enough to warrant undue physical avoidance on the part of the traveller.

Perhaps it was just the weather, perhaps it was a foreshadowing of the events to follow later that blustery autumn afternoon, but the entirety of London, overborne by the shade of the great oak trees lining the streets, seemed to affect an atmosphere of general greyness and gloom. London on a sunny day was beautiful, but on a rainy day was utterly despondent. The weather, however, did do delights for the service of several of the small, classy cafés parked haphazardly along the many streets of the posh side of the city. Warm and promising hot beverages and delicacies, the establishments appeared to many a Londoner as inviting as a warm fireplace in the heart of the drizzly city.

It was outside such a small café on Coventry Street that a middle-aged man waited for his companion. He came from old money; that was a given, considering his refined good-looks and good taste in attire. Streaks of grey peppered his dark-brown hair, slicked back, and his face was clean-shaven, though five-o'clock shadow adorned his sharp jawline. His grey overcoat and _vert foncé _woollen scarf draped elegantly over his figure, lean for someone in their mid-forties. The man appeared to epitomise the concept of 'gentleman' with hardly any effort on his part.

It was at a table _en __extérieur _of the café upon which a heated coffee pot and a clean ashtray settled that the man had chosen to hold their meeting – that of him and the person he was waiting for, that is. As good a place as any, was his reasoning. Not too public, not too private (he surely did not wish to make her uncomfortable) the café was of high enough class to assuage his dislike of London in general. He much preferred his native Belfast, to be sure. As it were, the man briefly enjoyed the smooth coffee blend that seemed native to London. Light-brown eyes surveyed the street, watching as a certain someone approached the café.

The person in question, a young woman of around eighteen or nineteen, took the seat directly across from the man in the grey overcoat, slipping off her own grey coat and red scarf and draping the items over the back of her chair, sweeping her brown curls off her neck. The man nodded to her; a measured tipping of his head that was his method of greeting.

"Coffee?"

"Please."

He poured from the pot that had been left on the table at his request, the dark liquid spilling into a porcelain cup and saucer in front of the young woman. She herself completed the beverage with an overabundance of milk – a social gaffe, in his opinion. One should never take too much milk with fine Italian coffee. It was to be expected, however, as the woman had not grown up in a suitable environment for such things to be taught. He would soon fix that, if he had his way. If not, his wife would, and _that _was certainly a force to be reckoned with. He replaced the pot on the table.

"Hermione."

She started at his voice, not expecting the refined Irish accent, dropping the spoon on the saucer with an inelegant clatter of metal against porcelain. He looked at the spoon with distaste, and a flash of colour flooded her cheeks.

"Excuse me," she apologised.

He waved her off. "Quite alright." The man sipped at his own coffee before placing it down quietly and almost gracefully. He cleared his throat. "I am sure you know why I have called this meeting."

"Yes."

"I am sure you have many questions."

"Yes."

"I am sure you know that I cannot answer all of them."

"Yes."

The two companions simultaneously took a sip of their respective coffees, placing them down on their saucers in unison. Hermione, as this was indeed who the young woman was, quickly examined the older man, sharp eyes noting the similarities and the differences between him and herself. The resemblance was too much for their relation to be deemed impossible, let alone improbable. She had always wondered where her brown eyes had come from.

Basic muggle genetics had taught her that blue eyes were a recessive characteristic, and brown eyes were dominant. Her parents had both had blue eyes and she brown, so it was in grade four of primary school that she had come to the conclusion that she was most obviously adopted. This hadn't bothered her so much at the time; several of the children in her classes were adopted. It was only when she received the Hogwarts letter on her eleventh birthday that she had dared to fantasise that her parents had been a brilliant witch and wizard who had given her up in order to protect her from the First War.

Instead, at eighteen, she found out that they were Death Eaters.

"My first question," Hermione traced the rim of her cup with her index finger and crossed her legs under the table, "concerns my twin brother."

The man nodded calculatingly. "Go on."

"He is in Azkaban, correct?"

"Correct."

"Does he bear the Mark?"

The man exhaled sharply. "Theodore...is strong-willed. Much like yourself, from what I have heard. I would like to say that he doesn't, but..."

"But you forced it on him."

"I did no such thing," the man snapped, before recovering his composure and settling on fixing her with a steely glare. "I simply wanted what was best for him."

"And pressing him into Voldemort's service at sixteen was best for him?"

"The Dark Lord offered him protection. You and your...friends...may not ever truly grasp how important that was after the First War. I was young when I was initiated to the cause, young and stupid. The Dark Lord knew that I had a son. It would have been impossible to hide Theodore from him, and so I decided that it was in his best interests to join willingly. Well, as willingly as Theodore does anything. Not to mention the Ministry – after the First War purebloods were reviled - we were put under suspicion by the Aurors and the DMLE. I wanted to protect my son from persecution."

"Like you wanted to protect me?"

"Like I wanted to protect you." The man reached into the inside pocket of his grey overcoat and pulled out a silver clasp of cigarettes. He drew one out and offered the clasp to Hermione. She took one between two long fingers and held it to her lips as he lit it for her with a silver muggle lighter before lighting his own. She leant back in her chair, the coffee forgotten on the table, drawing the smoke in deeply before exhaling in a steady stream into the crisp autumn air. The man watched the elegant curve of her bared neck as she looked over the street with hooded eyes, her eyelashes dragging along her high cheekbones. So like her brother.

"You," the man continued, "were in even more danger. As a pureblood woman, you would have been promised to a nice pureblood heir of my choosing. And my choosing would have been heavily influenced in the Dark Lord's favour, you see. I did not want that life for you. A concession to my own wife, who was subjected to an arranged marriage also. If the Dark Lord had known that I'd had twins, then I would have been forced to offer you to him for service, as a sign of my loyalty. He already knew that I had a son, so I left you with a muggle couple that myself and Calliope deemed suitable, and kept Theodore as my heir."

Hermione inhaled from her cigarette, absorbing this information. The part concerning protection she had expected. The avoidance of an arranged marriage, however, was surprising. She was grateful, on any part. He was speaking truthfully, she believed, as she had seen a brief flash of something resembling regret cross his features when he spoke of leaving her with muggles. She herself did not regret any of the time spent with her adoptive parents; Mr and Mrs Granger were kind people, dentists, who had loved her and supported her like their own child for sixteen years, until they died, their bodies blackened and burnt, in the ruins of a house in Melbourne, Australia, ignorant of the war that had claimed their lives, on the thirtieth of April 1998.

But that was in the past now.

"When is he released?" Hermione asked coolly, tapping her cigarette into the ashtray, polluting the shiny silver with blackened ash. "Theodore, that is."

The man picked up his coffee. "Nine days," he answered, tipping the dregs into his mouth. "Nine days and he will be home where he belongs."

"Where is home, exactly? Ireland?"

"Belfast. Northern Ireland."

"Ah. You do have a bit of an accent."

He raised his eyebrows, amused for the first time in the conversation. "Do I now? You obviously haven't talked to Theodore much, then. He sounds positively common."

Hermione let out a surprised bark of laughter before shutting her mouth in shock. The incredibly arrogant tone with which the man's last statement was delivered was too amusing for her socially-just temperament. She quickly glanced at the man to ensure her outburst had not offended him too much, but found him to be staring away from her, at the street, with something akin to amusement in his own eyes – genuine affection for his son.

She forced her features back into their cool arrangement. "No, I haven't spoken to him much. We shared Defence Against the Dark Arts and Potions classes, but we barely interacted. Politics, you know," she added wryly, her eyebrows arched.

"Yes, the Golden Trio, wasn't it? That was what they called you? Theodore put it in one of his letters, I think. Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter." He kept his tone even on the last name, not daring to betray any emotion in relation to the boy – man – who had not only brought the Dark Lord's reign to an end, but also put his son in prison.

"Yes," Hermione replied evenly. "I suppose it was a micro-representation of the War. We even had little battles. Draco Malfoy cursed my front teeth to lengthen almost to my knees."

The man raised an eyebrow, but that was his only concession of amusement. "Schoolboy antics."

"Schoolboy antics that became all the more serious in sixth year. They said that Eloise Midgeon sliced her own nose off attempting to rid herself of acne. But there was an epidemic of Guaranteed Ten-Second Pimple Vanisher gripping the girls' lavatories that could have easily cured her acne. It wasn't until Malfoy attempted to use the Cruciatus on Harry and he retaliated by using Sectumsempra that I put the pieces together. I don't suppose Theodore was quite close to Severus Snape, by any chance?"

The man surveyed her with new respect. "You are just as bright as they've said."

Hermione closed her eyes as she sipped her coffee, smiling slightly in satisfaction. She'd been to the Hospital Wing to get a pain-relief potion for her writing hand just as Eloise had been collected by her father to flee the country in light of the fear of Voldemort's recent return. She had seemed slightly vague and confused, symptoms of a Confundus, and when questioned presented memories of a dark-haired faceless figure wearing a Hufflepuff tie. There were no dark-haired boys in Hufflepuff.

"Thank you," she replied, pleased. She'd always had an innate instinct pressing her to please people in positions of authority, and this man practically oozed pride and power. And Dark magic, she reminded herself. The snake-and-skull Mark on his left forearm that she knew was present was testament to that, as was the slight black feel he had to his magic as it brushed up against hers periodically.

"Yes," he said neutrally. "An assignment from the Dark Lord to prove his loyalty. Disfigure a Mudblood. It was right after his initiation."

Hermione could not keep the distaste from her features. "How...nice."

This startled a laugh from the older man, now. "I see you are just as self-righteous as I expected you to be. But one must do what one must do to survive."

"As Theodore did, I suppose?"

"As Theodore did."

"And now he is paying for it in Azkaban."

The man's eyes glinted coldly. "Do not blame him for things that were beyond his control. Do we not all do things we are not proud of in times of war?"

Hermione opened her mouth to retaliate that no, we do not all do things we are not proud of in time of war, but closed her mouth when she thought of her adoptive parents, their memories modified and fictional, lying burnt to a blackened crisp among the ruins of the fake life she'd built for them.

The man saw this and nodded, expecting it. "You see? You cannot blame Theodore for the things he has done. He has paid for them with his youth and his reputation. He has served his time, and now I wish for him to start anew. I wish for all of us to start anew."

Hermione pushed the thoughts of her adoptive parents to the back of her mind. "All of us?"

The man pushed his empty porcelain cup and saucer to the middle of the table. "All of us. Including you, if you are willing. My wife wanted to have you stay at the manor as soon as she found out you were still alive and who you were. She misses female companionship, and I know she is bereft without Theodore. However, I thought it would be best for you to decide on your own terms whether meeting with us was what you wanted, let alone living with us."

"I appreciate that," Hermione said stiffly, not trusting what she was hearing. Her biological parents, Death Eaters no less, wanted to have her, one of the three fronts of the Order of the Phoenix and best friend to Harry Potter, saviour of the wizarding world, reason that their son was in Azkaban prison, as part of their family? She supposed that the man and his wife should be the anxious ones in this situation, but looking at him and his cool, pureblood demeanour, this apparently was not so. "But she needn't have worried about the circumstances. I do wish to meet her – she is my mother, after all."

She couldn't tell exactly, but she thought she saw a flicker of strong emotion cross the man's features. It was gone in an instant, however, so she could not be entirely sure. His voice was as steady as it had been for the previous part of the conversation when he replied, "I am very pleased to hear that."

Hermione did not understand exactly why, but her heart nonetheless beat happily at his admission. She looked away from him, watching the branches of the trees sway in the wind and rain of the afternoon, inhaling smoke from her cigarette for the first time in a while. It filled her mouth with the familiar ashy taste and this calmed her a little, even as she sat at a small, unfamiliar café in a posh, unfamiliar part of London with an older, unfamiliar gentleman drinking smooth, unfamiliar coffee.

The man smoothed the lapels of his overcoat down over his chest, straightening his scarf. "It is Theodore that I am worried about," he admitted. "I am not quite sure how he will react to the fact that he has a twin sister, let alone that it is you."

"I want to see him."

He nodded, accepting this. "Why don't you come with me to collect him from the Ministry?"

"Is Calliope not coming?"

"She wishes to stay at the manor to welcome him home. The cold and the wet of autumn are not good for her health, anyway. You should visit the manor, also. It is as good a time as any to meet the family." He finished off this declaration with a wry smile.

"I will, I think," Hermione said decisively, tapping her cigarette out on the ashtray and slipping her arms back through the sleeves of her overcoat. "It's almost five – I'd best be getting back."

The man conceded. "Of course. We can't have you out late associating with Death Eaters and the like," he commented in his gentle Irish accent.

Her eyes widened and she froze in the act of looping her red scarf around her neck before she realised that he was joking. She shook her head, settling the scarf into place before picking up her beaded handbag from below the table. It had been over a year since the War had ended, but some habits were hard to break. She still kept two changes of clothes – for Harry and Ron as well as herself – in the bag, along with the tent and also the books on Horcruxes and Defence. However, it doubled as a workbag for her, and carried all of the documents and papers necessary for her job along with a red lipstick she was particularly fond of and a hairbrush charmed to unknot tangles. As it were, she pulled out her wallet (the pouches used in the wizarding world were far too unattractive for her liking) and placed a five-pound note under the ashtray.

The man stood when she did, a concession to his highborn breeding and gentlemanly tendencies, pulling on brown leather gloves and slicking back his grey-streaked dark-brown hair with his fingers. He'd paid for the bill when he'd ordered, and so reached for Hermione's arm. "Allow me to escort you to the street."

Hermione raised her eyebrows in surprise at being treated like a pureblood woman before relaxing and settling her hand into the crook of the man's elbow. She _was _a pureblood woman now, after all. The two café companions made their way down the footpath, away from the small café, avoiding the piles of leaves and the puddles. It had ceased to rain, and as such there was no need for an umbrella or to hurry. And indeed, purebloods did not hurry; that was for the common people with less time and less money.

They made a handsome sight, many a passer-by noted absently, the older man with his stately, almost regal air, and the younger woman with the elegant brown curls and red silk scarf. For a moment, Hermione allowed herself a small concession; what would have it been like to grow up this way, escorted on the arm of a handsome older man in a world of wealth and propriety? But this train of thought was quickly pushed off the rails – her childhood had been wonderful, if a little imposed upon by the War. She had no right to expect of her muggle adoptive parents the same treatment she would have received had she remained with her biological family, just as she had no right to judge that biological family for giving her up when all they wanted was for her to be safe.

The man gently halted her around the corner of the street, and she disentangled her arm from his, smoothing down her grey coat and red scarf. They were ensconced in a small, clean alleyway, well out-of-sight of the citizens of London trawling the street just a few metres away.

"Thank you for today," she said, pulling her wand from her sleeve with a little flourish.

"It was entirely my pleasure."

"I shall see you in nine days in the Atrium at the Ministry?"

"You shall." He stepped forward and took her small hand in his larger one, lightly pressing his lips to the back of it in a traditional pureblood farewell. "Goodbye, Hermione."

"Goodbye, Mr Nott." And then, with a swirl of brown curls and a muted crack, she was gone.

Theodore Nott Sr stood alone in an alleyway in London, surrounded by the remnants of autumn rain and melancholy thoughts of the similarities between his imprisoned son and his long-lost daughter before he, too, disappeared with a crack to Belfast, leaving the alleyway in London as empty and dark as it had been for the entirety of autumn before.

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**A/N: This story will focus a lot on character development, as well as Hermione's introduction into pureblood society and her relationships with Harry, Ron, Theodore (Junior and Senior) and all the Malfoys.**


End file.
